How Trademarks Can Threaten Fanficcers

[rodo]

The following news is a few days old, but I was (and still am) very distracted by Dragon Age: Origins and only noticed this yesterday before I went to bed. I'm writing this post in English, because I think it might interesting to some people in English fandom as well as those affected by it in German fandom.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender there are, as the title says, Airbenders (well, one Airbender). There are also Waterbenders, Firebenders and Earthbenders, from what I can tell. I know there are no Lightbenders, but some fanficcers like to make up superspecial powers for their OCs. The German word for Lightbender is Lichtbändiger. Quite harmless, right? Yes, until a firm that designs glasses registers "Lichtbändiger" as a trademark. And sends a cease and desist letter to a German fanfic archive. The following is a rough translation of a few paragraphs from this post:

That is to say, the company Lichtbändiger Brillenglasdesign registered the term "Lichtbändiger" as a trademark. Under this trademark, they sell a variety of glasses whose colourful decorations are their distinguishing characteristic. These glasses can look like this, this or this.

The company Lichtbändiger Brillendesign asked FF.de to remove all stories that contain the term "Lichtbändiger". We contacted our lawyer, who advised us to comply with the request. While there is in fact no direct relation between the element benders from Avatar and the glasses, the trademark "Lichtbändiger" applies to electronic publications, which fanfics are in a sense, as well, and so the trademark law applies.

Yeah. I'm not sure I'm as outraged as I could (should?) be because I'm not yet past the WTF?-phase. It just seems so bizarre. But it's not yet April Fools and the post has been up for a while. There even is a follow up post. I still don't quite believe it and hope it's just a really bad joke.

Comments

[eumelkeks]

LOL, woot? How did they even find these stories?

[rodo]

Google, I'd wager. I think the violinist who found one fanfic about himself there and had it banned used google too.

[acari]

o_O ... okay.

Ich glaube, ich schicke das mal an Ces und Rebecca. Das ist bestimmt etwas fuer den OTW Newsletter.

PS. Huh. I have no idea why I randomly switched to German.

[rodo]

It's just so ... utterly bizarre.

Ich hatte auch mit mir zu kämpfen, damit der ganze Post Englisch wird. Mein Hirn will irgendwie lieber ein Mischmasch produzieren.

[acari]

I pinged Ces. It's just so weird, makes me wish I knew a trademark/intellectual property lawyer I could ask.

I did a quick google search and the word only appears in connection with that company or German Avatar fic.

(At least I didn't switch languages in the middle of a sentence.*g*)

[rodo]

Yeah, I had a course on Urheberrecht (as a journalism student), so I at least know the basics of that and read part of the law, but trademark law is something entirely different.

[rodo]

I'm well aware that German fandom has had various legal problems, but songfic has more to do with copyright/intellectual property and the Jugendschutz problem is another kettle of fish altogether. Trademarks? Bizarre. And not anticipated at all.

[blnchflr]

That seems very odd O_o

[rodo]

That's why I checked the date. It sounded more like an April Fools joke to me than actual news. But the post has been up since the 25th and other people linked to it before, so ...

[blnchflr]

Except to set up an AF's joke days in advance is not an AF's.